Can you identify this vintage toy from Japan?

James Kenobi 1138

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I've had this since I was a kid in the 1980s. I believe he was a pilot for a bigger toy, a robot or vehicle.

I have no idea where to start looking as googling for Japanese toys yielded no matching photos of this guy.

Anyone have a lead on who this guy is and what toy he goes with?

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Didn't they pilot vehicles that combined into giant robots? My friends had them, i swear it was one of the other other voltrons or something. I remember them having them because they were so odd looking.
 
Diaclone pilot, originally packed with the Japanese release of Transformers. Also packed with vehicles/robots from Diakron, Multiforce, Gatsblocker, Kronoform.

Wes, I'm disappointed you didn't know this! :)
 
I am ashamed of myself for not recognizing that lol. I think there were a few US releases that they were put out with which explains why some folks had them (including my friends). I knew it was familiar. I'm not surprised TFW2005 has someone making them, i bet a lot of G1 collectors buy them to go with their figures. like Dropshipbob said they've been in other Takara products which also means there's other toys in the US they'd have come with. I swear i had one from something as a kid too.
 
He was inside the cockpit of my Skywarp, but I took him out before taking it to Dallas Vintage Toys today. I was thinking he went with something else but I couldn't remember.
 
Sadly since the diaclone pilots are so easy to replicate it knocks the prices down. I'm amazed nobody's made an improved aftermarket version, god knows transformers have aftermarket everything else lol.
 
Yup, I had one of those. He fit perfectly in most of my Transformers. I tended to keep him with Prime most of the time. No idea where I got him, I don't remember any of my TF toys being Japanese.
 
Yup, I had one of those. He fit perfectly in most of my Transformers. I tended to keep him with Prime most of the time. No idea where I got him, I don't remember any of my TF toys being Japanese.

Same for me. I don't remember where this guy came from only that I only had the one figure and regular Transformers from Sears or toys-r-us.
 
OMG i had a bunch of those, EXACTLY like those! Bought them in a asian toy store in Montreal in 95-96 (store is still here lol). AKA chinese knock-off toys. They had Chinese voltron's, Chinese transformers, etc!!!

What they are, i don't know, but i remember they came with robot/vehicles.

Talk about blast from the past...

Edit: Diaclones apparently (thanks for the link). Cool stuff :D
 
It sure looks like the pilot to these robot toys I had in the very early 80's.

there were 4 robots I believe and they fit into each other like the nesting eggs.
 
It sure looks like the pilot to these robot toys I had in the very early 80's.

there were 4 robots I believe and they fit into each other like the nesting eggs.

They were probably from Takara and they reused the pilots cause i swear i remember non transformers my friends had who used them too. Takara loves reusing molds from toylines.
 
I remember being completely baffled that my friends Optimus came with a driver/pilot, and mine didn't. But then we also used to think that off color toys that our friends dad brought him from Japan were just cheap knock offs...
 
I had a Kronoform Multiforce robot that came with five of six of these little guys. Had it for years and then I sold a bunch of stuff off at a garage sale. A couple of elderly guys came in and bought just about every toy I had for sale...I assume they were going to flip them or some such.

I kicked myself years later when I found out their link to Transformers, and more importantly to me, Micronauts.

Wes, I don't know if the originals go for cheap looking at eBay. But of course, just because someone is asking $20-30 doesn't mean they get that much. I would think they are pretty rare because they were so easy to lose.
 
Funny thing is back in the 80s we had those little Battle Beast toys (I think that was the name) they were little anthro animals in armor that was just a fad, yet they were part of Transformers in japan at that period in time. Then again we all took those purple colored decoy figures (the soft rubber) and thought they were erasers as the boxes didn't explain what they were.
 
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